The invention relates to generating artwork or digital images with hot areas for computer program graphical user interfaces.
Computer program interfaces have long provided user-selectable graphics, such as buttons, as elements through which a user may interact with a computer program, to select an option or request a service from the program, for example. In network-based or distributed computer program applications, the selection of an interface element in a client program on one computer may be directed to either that program or to another program, such as a server program running on a separate computer. In Internet and intranet applications, the server program typically resides on a server computer remote from the client computer and communicating with it through a network connection.
One widely distributed and used class of client program is the HTML browser, such as the Netscape Navigator™ browser, available from Netscape Communications Corporation of Mountain View, Calif. Browsers typically provide support for a number of industry standard protocols, such as HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol), and industry standard formats, such as HTML (HyperText Markup Language).
An HTML document may include links to other resources. Graphically, the simplest form of link is the URL (Universal Resource Locator) of the resource displayed in the familiar form of underlined text. Access to a resource may also be provided through an image that a user may select to request the resource. The HTML specification includes, among other elements, a MAP element and an IMG element with an ISMAP attribute for this purpose. The ISMAP element can be used to define a server-side image map. When the user clicks on the image, the ISMAP attribute of the element causes the image (x,y) coordinates of location clicked to be passed to the server in a derived URL. A MAP element may be used with an IMG element to provide a client-side image map. AREA elements define simple closed regions, such as polygons and circles, by their coordinates within the image. AREA elements in a MAP element can define hot spots or areas on the image and link the hot spots to URLs. A hot spot is an area of an image, which may correspond to graphic object or a section of text, that activates a function when selected.